Tag: haiku

Hops, hops, hops, hops, hops/ bed of Golden Promise malt/you are perfection…there ’tis, #3 in the haiku series, enjoy!Fresh off the tap. Cloudy and red, big head, leaving lace…lovely to look at, delightful to smell. Grapefruit, pine, pithy citrus, and loads of other tropical fruits, a bit of mango, too, I swear. Blissful bitterness!Drink up! A blast of beautiful hoppy flavor, mixed with lush Scottish malt, full of satisfying flavor for any hophead. Not one? Not for you!It’s a lip-purser, and a mouth puckerer, a palate smacker, a bitch slapper! Each swallow and sip brings it back. The hops slip under the tongue, lay on the palate, and hang around. Some don’t like that, some compare it to “aspirin”…I think it’s tingly tasty ‘tantastic! If you hunger for the flavor of hops, this is your candy, your mistress, your heroin, your hustler. The malt is here in plentitude, too, and eventually reveals a hint of chocolate, as well. I’ve been loving this for two years now, and await a lifetime of more such love!Looking forward to the rest of your thoughts, but take it easy on the can copy…I wrote that stuff! Will you perceive it as a tempest on your tongue, or…will you love it? You know I do!

German brewery / makes Belgian abbey dubbel / not half bad, at that. There you go, haiku #1…don’t worry, they’ll get better.(wait…is “belgian” two syllables or three?)I reviewed this from a bottle back in November, for beeradvocate.com, gave it a 4.05 (out of 5). But for this site, I feel I should do it fresh and stay in the game, so I stopped in at McKenzie’s last night to taste it on tap. A 20 oz pint for $4.25 during happy hour.Didn’t like it as much this time. Poured a clear, deep garnet hue, with small head, very sweet nose, flavors of dark fruit and light spice, turning dry and peppery.Mix of the same continues in the taste, berries match cocoa powder, rounding out dry and balanced, with easy drinkability.However, the body is too light, and there’s just not enough meat on this dog’s bones to really do justice to the style. I love dubbels, consider them my favorite style of beer, and would rank Ommegang, Westmalle, & St. Bernardus as the top for me. This version falls among the lower tiers, sorry to say. I’d like this darker, as well, and without the syrupy sweetness that pops in from time to time. Still, props to this old, tradition-bound brewery for giving it a go! Who knows what’s up next from them?